


Their Faces Resemble Hers

by bardsley



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 20:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15276015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bardsley/pseuds/bardsley
Summary: Ariadne chooses to help the Theban maidens.





	Their Faces Resemble Hers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



> Warning: The minotaur dies in this story. The death is entirely “off stage”.

**I**

Ariadne’s fingers brushed against the fuzzy blue-green moss growing on the walls of the labyrinth. It was softer than lambswool, and flaked off when she touched it. The empty space looked like a wound. Ariadne did not want to hurt it. She did not want to hurt anything, especially not anything here. Strange things grew down in the labyrinth. Ariadne had grown down here. Mama felt too guilty to come here, and Phaedra was too afraid. But Ariadne liked this place. This was where Asterion was. She heard the clattering of her brother’s hooves in the trenches below and smiled.

  


**II**

Ariadne kept to the upper levels of the labyrinth while Asterion remained below. When she lay on the ground with her arm extended, she could reach him.

Asterion bleated quietly, stretching out his long, thick neck toward her. Ariadne stroked his muzzle. Her brother’s fur was smooth but firm. His wet brown eyes stared up at her. They were sad, intelligent eyes. She wondered how anyone could mistake them for anything but human.

“It’s almost time,” Ariadne said. “Do you know that?”

Asterion bleated and scratched at the ground. He jerked his head back and lumbered away, his shoulders slumped.

  


**III**

Ariadne barely remembered the last time, but she remembered liking the ceremony. The Theban boys and girls had been so pretty in their white clothes. Papa had made a speech about victory and sorrow and then the sacrificial youths were led down into the labyrinth. They never came out. Ariadne had not been permitted to see her brother for three days after that. When she did, Asterion made the saddest sounds. He sounded like he was dying, or longing for death. When he finally let her touch him, his muzzle was dry. The minotaur brother was not able to cry.

  


**IV**

Asterion would not come back, and Ariadne knew better than to venture too deep into the labyrinth when he was like this. So she left.

Ariadne felt the sun on her face. She tried to remember how long it had been since Asterion could have felt the sun. It had been years since he lived with them in the palace.

Father hated him, even then. But, before the hunger came, Asterion lived and played with her. She used to chase Asterion through the gardens, and frighten the guards. She smiled remembering the crowns he made for her out of flowers.   


 

**V**

But Ariadne was a woman now, almost fifteen. A woman who could understand how hollow her father’s words were. She watched the Theban youths descend from the boat. Seven boys and seven girls were led by grown men with swords, her father’s men. There was no glory here. Ariadne could not take her eyes off the girls. They were all beautiful but all different--tall, short, slim, round. Their faces shared a similar expression. It was a look in their eyes which suggested that they were trying to bravely face circumstances outside of their control. It reminded Ariadne of her own.

  


**VI**

The spool of thread was light in Ariadne’s hand. It didn’t have the artistry of the hollow bull or the complexity of the labyrinth, but it was the old inventor's most impressive creation.

The thread guided Ariadne safely through the labyrinth. It could not be cut, burned or broken. It could help those maidens find their way out. She could help them. But Asterion would starve.

Asterion was alway so hungry. She remembered the first person that he had fed on, back when he lived above. She remember her big brother, sick and shivering, letting himself be caged. She chose.

  


**VII**

Ariadne snuck into the tents where the maidens sat sleepless. She whispered her story. One of the girls reached out, touching the thread reverently. Then one of the young men plucked it out of her grip. He looked down at it in disgust.

“You’re giving us thread? If you want to help us, give us a sword, a spear, something useful!”

The brawny young fool tossed her spool of thread on to the ground, but she also saw one of the maidens scoop it up and hide it in the folds of her clothes. Ariadne struck the boy, and ran.

  


**VIII**

“If she keeps crying like that, throw her overboard,” said the idiot boy they called Theseus. The one she had struck. The one they said killed her brother.

“Asterion, oh gods,” Ariadne wept. Her tears were hot on her cheeks. The girls held her, comforting her, protecting her. She had no fear of Theseus.

But she was afraid, enough that she fled with the survivors. The giddy boys joked that Ariadne came for love of Theseus. Ariadne would have screamed if she could stop crying. She fled in shame. She was her mother’s daughter. Worse. At least mama had stayed.

  


**IX**

Ariadne took off her sandals and walked along Naxos’s shore. The sand was warm. The loyal maidens had begged her to go home with them. When it was clear Ariadne would not agree, they begged to stay with her. She refused.

They had a home to go to. Ariadne didn’t. She never would again.

“Have a drink.”

Ariadne was startled by a wild haired young man who was holding a cask of wine.

The stranger grinned. “You look like you need it.”

Ariadne accepted the drink. One drink would not change anything anyway, and besides she liked his smile.

  


**X**

When the boy told her he was a god, Ariadne assumed he was boasting. In his arms, drunk off of his wine-flavored kisses, she began to reconsider.

He held her while she cried and listened, the way only Asterion had listened to her. The way she thought no one would listen to her again.

When her throat was dry and as empty of words as the cask was of wine, he stroked her hair, and promised, “He is at peace now.”

Ariadne scoffed. “How could you know that?”

“I know.”

Ariadne brushed her fingertips against his smile. She believed him.  


End file.
